Theory and practice of staff motivation
The activity of any company depends on how well the personnel perform their work duties. The employees' interest in good performance is the key to successful business development. To motivate personnel to fulfill their duties not only in full, but also by making additional efforts, is one of the tasks of quality management.
The methods of positive incentives for improving labor efficiency or methods of motivation are implemented by companies from the public and private sector aimed at achieving success. This allows you to more efficiently allocate resources and stimulate the activities of employees who can bring the most value.
Concept and definition
The basis of motivation as a way to increase labor productivity is the psychology of the subject. All psychological theories and methods that underlie the motivation system are aimed at forming an employee's intention to do a good job. It is important that the desire to increase labor productivity is the result of the individual's own internal work, and not external pressure. Leaders and HR professionals use psychological techniques to change and direct employee behavior in the direction desired by the company.
In the economic sphere, motivation is understood as internal or external, but aimed at activating the internal, inducing an economic entity (employee, manager, counterparty, client) to perform activities with a specific purpose. At the same time, interest in activity must exist initially and it is necessary to apply initiation methods based on scientifically correct psychological premises.
In a narrow, purely personnel sense, motivation of personnel and work activity is the creation for an employee of the company to meet the needs of different levels, as well as internal expectations as compensation for the performance of duties. In such a process, it is necessary to achieve the connection of the personal goals of the employee with the goals and objectives of the organization.
In practice, motivation is expressed in a set of measures that management applies to improve the efficiency of the employee and team. When analyzing the concept, the following constituent elements of motivational policy are distinguished:
- activities aimed at encouraging other people to take action;
- one of the goals, but not the main one, is to meet the needs and expectations of the employee;
- focus on combining the goals and objectives of the employee and the organization;
- reliance on the interests and desires of the employee when developing the method;
- transformation of the theory of motivation into practice of application;
- development and application of integrated practices, rather than sporadic measures during implementation.
Theoretical basis
Almost all theories and theoretical constructions underlying the practice of motivation are based on the psychological concepts of "need" and "expectation."
A need is such a psychophysical state of the subject, in which he experiences a deficiency of important factors for him that determine his life. The state of having a need is characterized by an internal sensation, physiological or psychological, of the lack or insufficiency of any good. The presence of a need is the main factor that prompts action, activity. There is no single hierarchy of needs, and the ranking depends on the approach of the researcher.
The theory identifies two groups of needs:
- genetic, biological, or primary needs;
- secondary needs developed in the process of gaining life experience.
The first group is determined either by physiology (the need for food, shelter), or instincts inherent in the genes (the need for safety, in the pack). The second group arises in the course of growing up and personal development, for example, the need for recognition, for authority, for self-realization.
Expectation from the point of view of theories of motivation is a subject's assumptions regarding the likelihood of getting the desired or expected result when choosing a certain behavioral paradigm. Expectations are formed on the basis of two premises: previous experience and assessment of the current situation. Experience is most often the fundamental criterion in the development of effective behavior by the subject.
The introduction of the theory of motivation is most often associated with the expectations of top management, who received certain knowledge about the systems of personnel motivation. Any scientifically based concept, first of all, must meet the own internal expectations of company leaders. In addition, managers often want to achieve effective operation of the system implemented by competitors, so any project is accompanied by an analysis of successful implementation examples.
The demand for the introduction of employee motivation systems was formed in society at the beginning of the 20th century. Competition in economic relations has intensified, which required the inclusion of all available mechanisms for increasing labor productivity, including the ability to reach new heights and gain potential for growth using the resources of the workforce.
In response to a request, scientific theory began to study the psychotypes of employees and tried to offer the business concepts that would maximize the potential of employees to achieve the company's goals. As a result, three groups of theories emerged that explain the emergence of needs and consider various use cases in order to increase the interest of workers in work.
The first group is meaningful theories of motivation , which try to find among the needs of a person those that determine the attitude towards work. Among the authors of these theories are Abraham Maslow, David McClelland, Frederick Herzberg.
The second group is made up of procedural theories that study human behavior based on their expectations, perceptions, and internal attitudes. Similar ideas were developed by John Adams, Victor Vroom, Lyman Porter, and Edward Lawler.
The third group includes theories that study the direct relationship of the worker to work , for example, the "Z" theory of William Ouchi or the "X" theory and the "Y" theory of Douglas McGregor.
Modern practice of motivation is almost entirely based on three groups of theories, and science has not yet offered employers anything fundamentally different. Russian methods are most often an adaptation of foreign practice. Sometimes successful European methods are combined with non-material incentives from the Soviet era and the recommended structure of the benefits package. This is especially typical for structures with state participation, large industrial enterprises and organizations that arose during the reorganization of large monopolies, for example, Gazprom, Russian Railways, RAO UES.
Content theories of motivation
Content theories explore the needs of the employee. At the same time, various groups of needs are distinguished, which are lined up in certain hierarchical sequences or outside the hierarchy. Substantial theories of motivation try to combine the biological aspects of human life with the psychological ones; the relationship and mutual influence of biology and psychology are studied. The result of research is the identification of needs, the desire to meet which can lead a person to the desire to work more efficiently.
The most popular theory that is taken as a basis for developing practical methods of motivation is Maslow's pyramid of needs . The founder of humanistic psychology proceeded from the concept of the hierarchy of human needs. At the base of the pyramid, he saw the physiological needs for food and sleep, and at the top - the developed needs of an accomplished person who needs self-realization, and self-realization does not always mean only promotion. Abraham Maslow suggested that after a person satisfies the needs of each level, his interest in improving personal effectiveness falls. To awaken interest, it is necessary to move on to meeting the needs of a higher level.
Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation is based on a different concept. He divided the needs of the employee into two groups: hygienic and motivating. In the first group, the psychologist included needs that relate to the elimination of negative factors associated with work. This is a salary sufficient to satisfy physiological needs, safe working conditions, good relations in the team, and no pressure from the management. The term "hygienic" means in this case not so much the factor of proper working conditions as the factor of psychophysical hygiene, getting rid of unpleasant psychological moments. The second group of motivating factors is the need for satisfaction with the work process, for the existence of a system of assessment and recognition of merit, career growth, and other factors that determine success.
The first group of factors, according to Frederick Herzberg, should keep the employee in a specific workplace, while the second is aimed at increasing labor enthusiasm, creating an intention to increase the efficiency of actions. Additionally, the author introduced the concepts of “satisfaction” and “dissatisfaction” with working conditions, which can affect certain elements of human behavior.
Hygienic factors, as interpreted by Frederick Herzberg, partially correspond to the basic needs of Maslow's pyramid, and motivating factors are reflected on the two upper floors of the pyramid. A feature of the Frederick Herzberg model was the possibility of parallel, rather than sequential, satisfaction of all groups of needs.
David McClelland looked for the foundations of motivation in meeting only three top-level needs: power, success, and ownership. The priority need is the need for power , the ability to control the actions of other people and influence them, to determine the course of events that take place around and with the participation of the subject. The need to achieve success includes not only the desire to successfully solve the assigned tasks, but also the need to take responsibility. The third need is the need for involvement , affiliation, or the establishment of social ties at different levels. Collectivization in this case is recognized as an independent value, which does not always correspond to the individual principles of encouragement. This contradiction is smoothed out by professional management.
David McClelland's theory of motivation also overlaps with Abraham Maslow's. However, it is rarely used to motivate staff, since the needs for power and success are characteristic of employees at the highest levels of the hierarchy. And the system of motivation for top management takes into account psychological factors in the last place - the owner prefers to interest the manager with a block of shares, rather than influencing the psychological characteristics.
Procedural theories of motivation
Procedural, like meaningful theories of motivation, originated in the United States in the 1950s. The authors of procedural theories recognize that motivation systems need to take into account the needs of workers. However, the basic setting for stimulating to work is considered to be the ability to influence the behavior of the subject using internal attitudes and expectations. At the same time, the focus of procedural theories of motivation is not perception and expectation in general, but only those related to a specific situation, which determine the type of behavior that the subject chooses in relation to given specific circumstances. It is important that when a subject, a person makes a decision about the proper behavior in a particular situation, then he proceeds not from external prerequisites, but from his own assessment of the appropriateness of this or that behavior.
In Viktor Vroom's concept , for example, the effect of motivation occurs not on the basis of the employee's needs, but as a result of his reflections and correlation of the tasks set and the proposed motivating result, assessment of its reality and comparing it with the actual intentions of the individual. Within the framework of such a thought process, the result of which is the realization of the employee's internal motivation to work, four main points are distinguished:
- expectation of achieving a certain quality of labor efficiency, depending on the efforts made;
- expectation of a result that depends on the efficiency of the work;
- instrumentation, or understanding that the quality of work, the achievement of results becomes the only tool for obtaining the announced remuneration;
- determination of the actual value of the reward: if a person considers it insignificant or inappropriate to the efforts, the level of motivation drops sharply.
Additionally, the author uses the concept of valence. Valence determines how much in the employee's view the value of remuneration meets expectations, and how, depending on this, the degree of employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction is formed. In theory, thus, interrelationships of three groups of elements are formed:
- labor costs - results;
- results - reward;
- valence.
The motivation of an employee in Viktor Vroom's theory depends on expectations, which are related to how much, in the employee's view, the estimated costs will lead to the desired reward. At the same time, the theory does not take into account the subjectivity factor of the decision. And the measures taken by the management are assessed as initially objective and fair.
The theory of justice, or John Adams' theory of equality, states that you can motivate an employee by examining his assessment of the situation and relationship with the employer, as well as his understanding of the fairness of the relationship. The concept of fairness includes not only the assessment that the company places on the employee's labor contribution, but also the comparison of the employee's own situation with similar relationships affecting other employees or work collectives. Employees compare both the amount of actual or expected labor contributions and the amount of remuneration. At the same time, the possible feeling of injustice serves as a serious demotivating factor. To prevent the emergence of negative feelings, it is necessary to provide such conditions in which it is possible to compare only employees in similar positions with similar labor functions.
According to Adams theory, an employee's assessment of a similar situation from another employee is expressed in three types:
- correspondence of remuneration to labor contribution;
- underpayment or unfair payment;
- inflated remuneration.
John Adams suggested that workers have a keen sense of fairness and injustice, not only towards themselves but also towards their colleagues. And being unfair to colleagues can also affect the quality of work.
The procedural theory of justice describes six types of a subject's response to a state of inequality or injustice:
- The employee reduces the level of his own productivity, begins to save energy.
- The employee takes actions to improve his compensation, such as negotiating with management.
- The employee begins to perceive the decrease in his compensation as an objective factor and overestimates himself and his capabilities; his self-esteem decreases, and hence the opportunities for further increase in labor productivity.
- The employee begins to take various actions to reduce the level of remuneration of a colleague who, in his opinion, receives an unfairly high remuneration.
- The employee stops comparing himself to reference persons, deciding that their remuneration is based on biased factors, for example, personal relationships.
- An employee leaves a department, moving to another, or leaves the organization.
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In the group of procedural theories, the Porter – Lawler model also deserves attention. American psychologists Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler identified 5 basic elements of effective motivation, which includes mandatory accounting:
- efforts spent by the employee;
- personal perception of own work and the comparability of remuneration;
- the results that are actually obtained;
- the level and real value of the remuneration;
- the degree of satisfaction of the subject.
It is important that the Porter-Lawler model is based on the employee's self-assessment of the quality and effectiveness of his efforts, on an external assessment of his abilities and capabilities, as well as on the level of the employee's awareness of himself as a structural unit of the organization. The theory is that the level of effort a worker makes is always dependent on the value of the reward and the worker’s confidence that the amount of effort put in will be the basis for receiving the conditioned reward. The authors insist that the remuneration must always correspond to the performance of the work, and the employee must satisfy the needs through remuneration. Moreover, the comparability of effort and reward is one of the key needs on which effective motivation is based.
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The authors of meaningful and procedural theories of motivation believe that productive work is one of the needs of an individual, and motivation should be based on satisfying this need.
In practice, the developers of incentive systems prefer to be guided by the installation that it is necessary first of all to satisfy the basic needs of the employee, which will become the basis for increasing labor productivity. Labor motivation is a fusion of various psychological approaches, therefore it is extremely rarely embodied in reality.
Motivation theories based on a person's attitude to work
Theories based on the attitude of a person to work, in fact, are close to the procedural, but assume a higher consciousness of the subject of motivation. A striking example is the theory "X" and "Y" of Douglas McGregor, which is devoted to the implementation of tasks to motivate management. Managers, regardless of their level, need motivation, but in the case of top management, motivation is based on more complex prerequisites than in the case of ordinary personnel.
Douglas McGregor believed that almost the only motivating factor for a leader is the degree of control over subordinates. The author designates the authoritarian style of leadership "X", the democratic style - "Y".
The authoritarian style is characterized by the fact that all the powers of personnel management are concentrated in one person and a direct dictate of the desired demeanor and methods of solving problems is established. This behavior of the leader is explained not only by personal qualities, but also by objective reasons:
- It is not natural for a person to show initiatives, to feel a desire to work, on the contrary, there is a need to shift responsibilities onto others.
- An employee is characterized by a lack of ambition, he prefers not to take responsibility and shift the responsibilities of making decisions to others.
- The effectiveness of activities is achieved only by coercion and fear of the use of disciplinary measures.
Democratic leadership is based on opposite premises. All or most of the employees are involved in the decision-making process under Y. Democratic style postulates:
- Labor for a person is a natural process, one of the key needs.
- When creating favorable conditions for self-realization, a person will choose a demeanor that will be characterized by responsibility and a high level of self-control.
- A person is able to independently make creative decisions, but under normal conditions he realizes the ability only partially.
Both theories of Douglas McGregor received a kind of continuation in the theory of "Z" William Ouchi, who proposed the corporation itself, built on a clan principle, as a key element of motivation. The author formulates the rules not so much for staff motivation as for managing the enterprise as a whole. Compliance with the rules should lead to an increase in the efficiency of employees' work:
- Hiring personnel for the long term. The needs of the biological order also include confidence in the future, so the stability of maintaining a job eliminates some demotivating factors.
- Making decisions on a group basis. Collective decisions increase responsibility, which is formed by the attitude of the team. At the same time, decisions are more effective, since the opinion of the group allows taking into account more factors that are relevant to the case.
- Cadres should be evaluated and promoted slowly, while the current reward system should stimulate the self-education process.
- Oversight should be mostly informal, with clear criteria and systems for assessing results.
- Career should be non-specialized, non-targeted. A person who grows through the levels of the hierarchy should be able to work in different positions and departments, which will help him get a complete understanding of the specifics of the organization's work.
- Attention to the needs of employees, understanding the value of each person for a common cause, taking care of him.
The use of these theories of motivation in the work of Russian companies is not systemic, but with their targeted and targeted application, it can give good results.
Practical approaches to motivation
Most of the motivational practices used in Russia are borrowed from international experience. Our own schools of motivation have not yet been created. At the same time, the management of enterprises uses not theories as such, but systems developed on their basis that can be implemented within existing business processes, are understandable and scalable. The main feature of the motivational decision should be its complexity, the system should include all links of the management chain and work for each of the individual divisions of the company. At the same time, it is necessary to use all the variety of motivation tools developed and proposed by practice.
They are divided into two main groups: tangible and intangible incentive instruments. The classification can be arbitrary, as the same instrument can be used in different ways in different conditions. Motivation, in contrast to business processes, can be different: some methods and techniques are acceptable for routine processes, and completely different ones will be required in situations requiring a creative approach from the employee. The motivation for specialists involved in routine areas, such as bank operators, lawyers, personnel officers, may be unsuitable for inventors, artists, programmers, and engineers.
Motivation in public service
Motivation is required not only in private companies. The largest state corporations have their own incentive systems, developed by the state - the main shareholder, acting in the person of the Federal Property Management Agency, and approved at the level of the boards of directors. For state-owned companies, the main method of motivation is the use of systems of key performance indicators. It is being finalized and changed, but the essence of assessing the performance of personnel based on their achievement of a number of predetermined indicators remains unchanged. As an example of improvement, we can recall the change in the systems for assessing the performance of governors, in which at the first stage more than 80 indicators were proposed, but after checking the system's performance, their number was reduced by more than 8 times. This was due not so much to the impossibility of assessing such a number of indicators, but to feedback signals showing the impossibility of preparing timely and reliable reporting on the implementation of such a number of indicators.
When developing remuneration for top managers of state-owned companies, in addition to a base in the form of key performance indicators, a long-term incentive method is widely used. The opportunity to receive an annual bonus under this system arises for the head not earlier than one year after the expiration of the reporting period. This mechanism assumes that top managers are oriented towards long-term cooperation with state-owned companies. The share of such long-term remuneration sometimes exceeds 40 percent or more of the total annual compensation. Incentive methods are also used by offering a stake in the company. But a feature of Russian practice has become the so-called phantom shares, which do not give the right to participate in management, while their value is growing at the same rate as the value of ordinary shares. Thus, the activity of the manager, which leads to the capitalization of the company and an increase in the value of his shares, also leads to an increase in the value of the block of phantom shares owned by the administrator. At the same time, material and non-material methods of incentives are not equivalent, in state-owned companies, when stimulating top management, priority is given to material methods, and middle and lower levels - to non-material ones.
Motivation in commercial companies
Most large companies use the same basic incentive system in their activities as government organizations. The system of key performance indicators has established itself as one of the most effective mechanisms. At the same time, it is necessary to develop separate methods of motivation for specialists employed in various fields. The personnel motivation system largely depends on the psychology of the employees involved in specific areas of activity.
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IT sphere
Specialists in this area are distinguished by a combination of high interest in their work and an increased level of knowledge and competence. The presence of these factors can lead to the refusal of a particular job if, due to insufficient motivation, interest in it disappears. A combination of tangible and intangible incentives is needed to keep the employee at work and improve his efficiency.
- Material incentives
Specialists in this area are quite in demand and can count on a high level of wages. From the company's point of view, it would be unwise to set salaries above market for employees, while motivation should be based on their variable part, based on performance.
It is believed that the use of different methods of certification and assessment, as well as the system of KPIs within one unit becomes more demotivating than motivating factor. This is due to the fact that any differentiation of wages among employees, based on any assessment, reduces the employee's desire to develop. His self-esteem decreases in full accordance with the results of the assessment, the person involuntarily reduces labor productivity and refuses to make independent non-standard decisions. Indicators that depend on initiative and creativity are especially negative for performance. For example, the number of rational suggestions for improving the program code per month or the development of methods to increase the productivity of the program become indicators that push personnel to openly manipulate them.
The ideal system for the employees of this division will be not only a variable part of compensation, depending on the level of the company's sales, as suggested in some cases, but also non-systemic bonuses that mark individual achievements. The bonus should mark the delivery of a project or the completion of product development, the attraction of large customers and other similar achievements. Bonuses, given the specifics of the market, should be substantial. The combination of these two practices will allow achieving the most effective material incentives for this group of employees.
The KPI system in the case of a development team should help the management evaluate the performance of the company as a whole, understand the performance and mood of the team, but it should not become the basis for assessing each of the employees.
- Non-material incentive methods
Along with financial leverage, it is imperative for artists to use non-material incentives. At the same time, the atmosphere prevailing in the team can be grossly violated by the use of methods of non-material incentives that are incomprehensible and do not coincide with its values, for example, the "Best in the profession" certificates. The ideal way to motivate can be various ratings based on a set of points for various performance indicators, assigning the most interesting areas of work, for example, developing and testing gaming applications. The system of grades has also proven to be effective, which allows you to advance the employee in the formal-informal hierarchy, increasing his personal authority in the team. At the same time, if in large companies the grading system is accompanied by a gradual increase in wages and the expansion of the amount of privileges, up to a personal car, in the creative teams of CA the fact of a high grade becomes a serious motivating factor.
An additional method of incentives will be to improve the qualifications of employees at the expense of the company, send them to various courses, pay for seminars and trainings. Even providing machine time for in-house development can be an important motivating factor for a large group of development engineers.
For people of a creative mind, a flexible work schedule is also becoming a very important factor, allowing them to make the most of their cycles of personal effectiveness. Severely regulated working hours, fines for lateness, tying an employee to the workplace, on the other hand, sharply reduce labor productivity. The practice of flexible working hours has found an effective application at Google, where developers are required to spend 20% of their working time on any projects that do not belong to their main responsibilities. While this activity is paid according to average earnings standards, it is beneficial for both the employee and the company. It was at this time that most of the new ideas were created, thanks to which the company became one of the leaders in the industry. Free creativity, in any case, is an intellectual product owned by the company, but the ability not to engage in standard processes, but to create, affects the employee's performance of his duties in the main areas.
Scope of sales
Do not think that only financial motivation based on such indicators as sales volume and revenue size can apply to salespeople. It is important, but along with it, the use of many other scientifically based mechanisms of motivation is permissible. Most often, along with material compensation, various grades of positions are used, on which both the scope of powers and the type and amount of compensation depend. Thus, within each position, steps or grades are created. Upon reaching certain indicators, the grade increases, and after reaching the last grade, the employee is transferred to the next position in terms of level. With the efficient and smooth operation of this system, the independence of the assignment of grades from the subjective position of the manager, the employee can always measure the level of his labor costs and the goal he would like to achieve.
- The material part of motivation
For sales employees, material compensation always consists of two parts: basic and bonus, depending on the successful transactions made. Moreover, the bonus part also consists of two variables. The first depends on the fulfillment of the sales plan established for the employee by his manager, the second is created by exceeding the established indicators. In some cases, employers would like to establish only a commission payment system, which negates the basic part of wages as such. Not only does such a system contradict the current legislation requiring the payment of at least the minimum wage, it also does not allow the employee to be motivated and leads to high staff turnover. On the other hand, the very fact of having an official salary, work book and deductions to the Pension Fund until recently in the field of sales was considered as additional motivation. Given the strengthening of government regulation in all areas, this method of motivation is becoming a thing of the past. An interesting burnout factor is also common in this area. Having changed the grade and received a slightly higher income, the employee also receives additional expectations associated with a change in the essence of work. At the same time, maintaining the same routine duties dramatically changes the employee's mood from optimistic to pessimistic, he loses interest, efficiency and often leaves.
- Intangible sphere
Much less attention of the employer is riveted to intangible methods of stimulation existing in the field of sales than to material methods. This is wrong, since it is in the routine sphere that the introduction of motivation by non-material methods allows you to retain an employee. One of the main ways of motivation in this area will be training. Improving sales skills over a long period of time will be the reason for the transfer of the employee to a new position. An effective and qualified specialist who has spent a lot of time in one position, with the exceptional value of his skills, does not reduce or even increase the rate of sales, but begins to shy away from difficult tasks, taking responsibility, serious or extraordinary decisions. If promotion in these conditions is impossible, it is necessary to look for new methods of motivation for such an employee, for example, creating a team for him, introducing him into the circle of decision-makers among the management, and similar. In this case, it will be possible to fully use the experience and skills of the employee and motivate him to further increase the efficiency of his own labor and growth.
The second way of non-financial motivation will be to change the sector of work, for example, one that is closer to home or with a large selling potential. Often, a change in territory dramatically raises an employee's efficiency. Carrying out various actions, participating in their organization, replacing only selling work with managerial work seriously raises the level of employee motivation.
Using various social packages to stimulate staff, organizing recreation in most cases reduces the impact of negative factors at work related to the category of hygienic, and helps to switch the employee's mood to a more positive one, which means increase sales.
Production area
The production involves various categories and ranks of employees. These are workers, foremen, engineers, managers. They have different specifics of activities, but some factors are common to all levels of personnel. This is the need for knowledge of technology and processes, often dangerous and requiring increased attention working conditions, team work, great responsibility for product quality. The motivation system should be based on stimulating the employee's activity in relation to each of these factors. An additional aspect of an employee's work in production is the need for retraining as new equipment or information technologies are introduced.
- Material incentive methods
The standard wage system in various industries consists of a salary and a bonus. The second is formed based on various indicators: from the fulfillment of established production standards to the period of work in production, the presence of hazardous working conditions, and others. A feature of the formation of wages for a production worker in most cases becomes the need to coordinate the adopted wage system with the collective, fixing it in a collective agreement or tripartite sectoral agreements.
A common way to motivate labor productivity is to establish a different cost of manufacturing one part or performing an operation if the number of operations fits into the production plan, and in case of its overfulfillment. In the second situation, the cost of the operation becomes higher. Motivation consists of two factors - completing the set part of the work on time and overfulfilling the plan. The bonus part in the salary of a foreman or a manager in this case will depend on the aggregate wage fund of all employees under their authority. If it is necessary to dramatically increase production indicators or make a breakthrough in one of the sections, the so-called lump-sum wage system is used.
Practitioners in the application of incentive systems assess work in production as requiring serious physical costs, accompanied by the active inclusion of intellectual potential. As compensation, it is necessary to introduce a social package containing various methods of switching and relaxation. At the same time, a social package that includes office space, the possibility of obtaining a loan for the purchase of one's own home, a corporate clinic and the possibility of free use of a sports complex is traditional for Russian manufacturing enterprises. This is one of the few ways not only to attract young people, but also to keep them.
Quite often, a chaotic change in motivation systems leads to the fact that different and sometimes radically contradictory systems of motivation are used at different production sites. So, for administrative personnel, 90 percent or more of compensation will be the salary, for employees of sales departments, the ratio will be different. In these conditions, it is very difficult to talk about fairness for all accepted systems of motivation. An audit will help to cope with the problem, which will make it possible to identify spontaneously formed bottlenecks and adjust the methods of motivation. Even when developing incentive systems for employees of commercial departments, it is necessary to take into account that the fixed salary must be at least 50% of the total annual income.
- Intangible methods
The pennant "Production leader" and skill contests among the brigades seem to be a thing of the past. Nevertheless, they are being revived and sometimes introduced at factories of foreign companies, where these methods of non-material incentives are based, inter alia, on European experience and on the developments of foreign scientists. At the same time, there are interesting studies of consulting companies that describe that the best way to stimulate labor is a board with photographs of production leaders.
Perhaps previously Soviet, and now foreign experience has a right to exist, but practice shows that workers in production need other methods of incentives. The main thing in this case is the allocation of two motivations: the need for assessment and love for work. All incentive methods associated with the performance of specific tasks become the main method of reward. It should be borne in mind that monotonous labor processes cause emotional burnout, therefore, any changes in the labor function can be used as incentives. Improving working conditions is also a very important way of motivation, although it has a material component, but is not directly reflected in the level of compensation. Here, the scope for creativity of the personnel department is great. There are beautiful, comfortable overalls, and the organization of comfortable showers, dressing rooms, and healthy and tasty food in the factory canteen.
An important element of encouragement is the introduction of a corporate culture at the enterprise based on systemic values that are understandable to each employee. Its fundamental elements can be brand traditions, the history of an enterprise, and workers' dynasties.
All the considered methods of motivation were tested in specific industries, survived the test of time and proved to be effective. It is not always worth relying on foreign scientific developments, having the opportunity to perceive the positive domestic experience.
Implementation of incentive systems
Motivation techniques can be used at various levels. The most effective option is to approve them at the level of the highest authorities in the company. As is customary in state-owned companies, whose experience it makes sense to focus on, the developed incentive system must be approved at the level of the Board of Directors. On the one hand, this requires significant additional efforts from the company's management; it is impossible to submit a crude, contradictory, unfinished system for consideration by the supervisory board. On the other hand, approving it in this way will help convince all employees of its effectiveness, reduce the element of voluntarism and injustice, and establish clear and predictable rules of the game for everyone.
Therefore, the stages of introducing a motivation system should begin with a serious and systematic approach to its development.
Development
When developing a motivation system, it is necessary to analyze all successful practices, taking into account their applicability to a specific sector of the economy and the status of an enterprise. Methods that successfully work at the level of a plant or an implementation company will turn out to be completely inapplicable to a holding company that combines the provision of transport and construction services. For enterprises in which it is impossible to single out the main earning and service divisions, the system for establishing key performance indicators will be optimal, but it will be necessary to involve all interested divisions and their managers in its development. Otherwise, already at the stage of system development, contradictions will be incorporated into it, which will lead to conflicts and, ultimately, to a drop in labor productivity.
Statement
Before the system is submitted for approval by the management, it must go through the approval and endorsement procedure. It is optimal, already at the development stage, to invite all interested parties to make their changes and proposals and create a convenient discussion mode, both within the framework of document flow and at meetings. The result should be the verification of the system by all interested parties and a list of approvals that does not contain visas without comments. Only a project prepared in this way can be submitted for consideration by the board of directors. Together with the concept, it is optimal to submit for approval all the fundamental documents, including the regulation on wages and the regulation on motivation, as well as the assessment mechanism and the list of officials responsible for personnel assessment.
Implementation
The stage of implementation of the system should begin with the adoption of all the main provisions. When developing them, the opinion of the labor collective, including the trade union committee, must be taken into account. The regulations must comply with all legal requirements, and references to them must be contained in employment contracts. If necessary, it is necessary to prepare additional agreements to the contracts containing references to these internal regulations.
All employees must be familiar with the provisions by signing, which is made in a special journal. Personnel assessment methodologies should also be communicated to all employees.
Budgeting becomes an important stage of implementation. The introduction of the estimated costs to the company's budget should be planned by all departments no later than the end of the first half of the year before the start of the reporting year. If the planned indicators are exceeded, it is necessary to provide sources of replenishment of the corresponding budget items.
Performance check
At least every six months, the effectiveness of incentive systems should be checked. It is necessary to compare the company's performance before and after the implementation of the system, using both simple digital methods and software products. If the motivation system does not show a significant change in labor productivity and key indicators of the company's success, it is necessary to make a proposal for its improvement. Checking the effectiveness can be expressed in comparing the key indicators of the company's success before and after the implementation of the system, in questioning employees, identifying their degree of internal satisfaction with the proposed measures. Performance verification activities should be systematic in nature, carried out on a regular basis, and not only in the form of comparison of indicators of specific reporting periods.
Software products
For the implementation of incentive programs, certain software products can be used. It can be both time tracking programs and programs that allow assessing the quality of personnel. There are software products that make it possible to implement job grading technologies and develop motivation approaches for each specific job. The programs offer the ability to collect factors from experts to assess the position, create a grade table and develop individual remuneration systems.
Assessment of the quality of motivational activities
Any business process, and motivation can be attributed to this category, requires assessment. An assessment of the quality of motivational activities must be carried out at least once every six months. If the inefficiency of the selected system is revealed, then it can be changed, but not instantly, but starting from the next reporting period. Such approaches are also required by the need to test the implemented methods over a time interval longer than one or two quarters, and the complexity of changing incentive systems based on the need to revise the company's budget. It is advisable to assess motivational activities not on our own, but with the involvement of consulting companies. This will allow us to identify all errors that have arisen at the stages of development and implementation of systems, and to develop recommendations to optimize the methods used. It will also help reduce the psychological tension that arises when the effectiveness of the system is assessed by its authors.
Changing the system as a whole is not recommended; in most cases, a little refinement is needed to adapt theoretical approaches to the practice of a particular organization. In this case, the resources spent on revision will be minimal, and the success can be significant.
09.12.2020
